holidays

[donetello]

I have started work at a firm where my week is Monday till Thursday doing 4 x10 hour days,so Fridays are not worked.I have just seen my work supervisor to book my 2 weeks holiday in August and have been told I have to put holiday days in for both Fridays,Yet as I say we dont workFridays so why should I lose holiday days by having to book 10 days off rather than eight.The reason they have given is the working week is based on 5x8 hours.Look forward to your opinions on this one.

[buildersmate]

You are fundamentally correct and it amazes me how many employers still can't get this right. The problem usually occurs with a part-time worker who works some days in a week regularly but not other days. I assume that some workers work M-F 8 days per day, but your shift is different. The easiest way to explain this to your employer is to think of your annual holiday entitlement in HOURS not days. If you are working the same number of hours per week as your peers you should get the same amount of holiday. Say that is 20 days plus the 8 days public holiday. That equates to 28*8 hours of total holiday per annum. Now every day that you do NOT work when you would NORMALLY DO counts as 10 hours of your holiday. This means that those Fridays in August should be ignored but the other 8 days M-Th each count as 10 hours.
However be aware that every public holiday where you are scheduled to work but don't 'counts' as 10 hours for you - that means Bank Holiday Mondays are 10 hours of leave for you.

[factor-fiction]

I nearly always agree with buildersmate and I agree that the simplest way is for employers to calculate holiday entitlements in hours.
But I think in this case the company may be correct. If they are calculating holiday entitlements in hours then maybe they are simply asking donatello to book her 40 hours holiday by requesting 5 x 8 hours holiday. It may just be the way their systems work. if the annual entitlement is in hours then Donatello is not actually losing out- she is using the 40 hours (x 2 weeks) that she wants.
Do you agree buildersmate?

[brachiopod]

I had to re-read this a couple of times, but I now think your employer is correct.

There are two ways to look at this, but they amount to the same result.

1. If you consider yourself a full-time worker, (you work a full 40 hour week like everyone else, but spread over 4 days) so you get the full holiday entitlement, rather than a pro rata'd (part time) entitlement.

However, each of your accrued holiday days represents a 'normal' 8 hour day, so if you take a day off, using one of your holiday days, then you actually still owe them the extra two hours you would normally work. that day. Over a four day week, you would thus owe 4 x 2 hours - ie a whole 8 hour day.
So to take your 4-day, 40 hour week off, you would need to use 5 x 8 hr 'holiday days'. (ie. as per factor30's answer)

2. The second way is to consider yourself a part-time worker. You work 4 out of 5 days, so get 4/5 (four fifths) of the holiday entitlement. If we say it's 20 days, then you would get 4/5 x 20 = 16 holiday days. However, each of these pro rata holiday days amounts to your normal working day (ie. 10 hours).
In this case, a week off would cost you 4 x 10 hour holiday days, as Friday is not your normal working day.

If I was an employer, I would use this second, pro rata method, because by giving you the full holiday entitlement, you could actually take much more leave than you were entitled to if you used up your allowance by taking a day off here and a couple of days there.

[buildersmate]

Factor - yes I agree.

Brachiopod - your scenario 2 is exactly my point. By taking the odd day here and there, Donetello could end up extracting a larger amount of holiday than entitled - that's precisely my point and why the holiday has to be counted in hours - one working day off equals 10 hours holiday not a day (8 hours).

The whole point is that for a full week off on holiday (5 days) it doesn't make a blind bit of difference - a week off is 5 days or 40 hours holiday. Its when there are odd days and public holidays that it gets messy.